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[ THE DEVIL IN THE WHITE CITY BY LARSON, ERIK](AUTHOR)PAPERBACK

The Chicago World?s Fair of 1893 and its amazing 'White City' was one of the wonders of the world. This is the incredible story of its realization, and of the two men whose fates it linked: one was an architect, the other a serial killer. The architect was Daniel H. Burnham, the driving force behind the White City, the massive, visionary landscape of white buildings set in a wonderland of canals and gardens. The killer was H. H. Holmes, a handsome doctor with striking blue eyes. He used the attraction of the great fair - and his own devilish charms - to lure scores of young women to their deaths. While Burnham overcame politics, infighting, personality clashes and Chicago's infamous weather to transform the swamps of Jackson Park into the greatest show on Earther, Holmes built his own edifice just west of the fairground. He called it the World?s Fair Hotel. In reality it was a torture palace, a gas chamber, a crematorium. These two disparate but driven men toegther with a remarkable supporting cast of colourful characters, including as Buffalo Bill, George Ferris, Thomas Edison and some of the 27 million others who converged on the dazzling spectacle of the White City, are brought to life in this mesmerizing, murderous tale of the legendary Fair that transformed America and set it on course for the twentieth century.

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Sorry, that was annoying. But it’s almost as if Erik Larson wrote two really short books—one about the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition and another about the murder spree of Dr. H. H. Holmes—and then shoved them together to create a single story. The resul... ...more

So, no offense to those that liked this book, but I'm throwing in the towel after 75 pages. It's just not holding my interest. Part of the reason for this is that Larson's writing style is way too speculative for my taste in non-fiction. I just finished reading the Path Between Seas by David McC... ...more

He wanted to write an extensive, in-depth look at the 1893 World's Fair, which was a collaboration of some of the greatest creative minds in the country (including the guy who designed the Flatiron building in New York and Walt Disney's dad) and gave us, among other things, the F... ...more

Heard the one about the architect and the serial killer? It's not a bad joke, but it is a great book. The architect was Daniel Burnham, the driving force behind the Chicago World's Fair of 1893; the killer was H.H. Holmes, a Svengali-type figure who lured young women to his hotel and did the most... ...more

The White City is the Chicago Columbia Exposition, a world fair in which all the buildings were painted white; the time the late 1800s during the fair; the Devil is a serial killer. Yet this is a non-fiction book. Larson has written a very informative as well as entertaining story. The Columbian... ...more

So, there’s this scene in David Fincher's Zodiac in which Jake Gyllenhaal's character, Robert Graysmith, visits the home of someone he believes to be the famed Zodiac killer. As Graysmith ventures down in the suspect’s basement, there’s this sense of dread that’s instilled in the viewer as they w... ...more

I enjoyed Devil in the White City, particularly for the wealth of information (tons of great trivia!) in this novel-style nonfiction book. I probably would have appreciated it more, though, if I were from Chicago, a city planner or architect, or had a fascination with serial killers.